Quick service restaurants are restaurants that specialize in rapidly selling food that is typically ordered only a few minutes before it is tendered to the customer. Many quick service restaurants will sell food products for some time after those food products have been prepared. For example, hamburgers may be available for sale up to twenty minutes after being cooked. Food products that are excessively aged become “perished” (e.g. stale or soggy). Selling such perished food products would hurt the reputation of the restaurant. Furthermore, aged food products can pose a significant health risk to consumers, which in turn would impose liability on the restaurant. Accordingly, if the food product is not sold within a certain time period after being prepared it is typically thrown away. This waste is considered a cost of doing business and factored into the restaurant's expenses.
Some modern quick service restaurants have systems for reducing the waste associated with excessively aged food products. For example, some restaurants include a demand forecasting apparatus that attempts to predict future demand for various food products. Such predictions are used to determine types and quantities of food products to be prepared. Perfect predictions would allow a restaurant to eliminate significant amounts of waste, since only those food products about to be ordered would be prepared. Unfortunately, applicants are unaware of any demand forecasting apparatus that is capable of making predictions with anywhere near perfect accuracy. Accordingly, demand forecasting apparatus do not eliminate waste in restaurants.
Restaurants may use various processes and apparatus to keep food products fresher for longer periods of time after cooking. For example, the Welbilt UHC4TP Universal Holding Cabinet retains cooked food components, such as hamburger patties and chicken patties, and keeps those food components fresh until they are assembled into food products, such as hamburgers and chicken sandwiches. For example, hamburger patties may be cooked on a grill and then placed in the Universal Holding Cabinet, where they remain for up to a predetermined length of time. A timer measures the length of time that the patty is in the Universal Holding Cabinet. Food components are typically assembled only when there is a need for a certain food product. Such a need may arise from an actual order for the food product or from a predicted (anticipated) order generated by a demand forecasting apparatus. For example, if hamburgers are or will be needed, the hamburger patties are removed from the Universal Holding Cabinet and assembled into hamburgers.
If a food component is not removed from the Universal Holding Cabinet before the timer reaches the predetermined time, the patty is considered not sellable and is discarded. Similarly, once a food product has been assembled, there is a limited time period within which the food product may be sold. For example, an assembled hamburger may be discarded after twenty minutes. Assembled food products are maintained in a warming bin or similar warming apparatus while they await sale, as are other food products that are ready to sell yet require no assembly.
Thus, food products and food components are often discarded at considerable cost to the restaurant. The various methods and apparatus that restaurants may employ serve to somewhat reduce this significant waste. It would be advantageous to further reduce the costs associated with the inability to sell perished food products.